The specification relates to a system and method for authenticating online communications. In particular, the specification relates to attaching a cookie to a client device.
Users of internet services (e.g., email, microblogs, social networks, etc.) frequently have multiple online identities. Many users prefer to have a fewer number of identities and have a single entity manage their online identities. OpenID™ providers are user identity management services that manage the online identity of users and authenticate these users to third-party internet service providers. These third parties are referred to as relying parties because they trust the OpenID™ provider to authenticate users for them. A user logs in with the user identity management service and is thereafter automatically logged in to many other relying parity services. For example, the user has an email account, a microblog account and a social network account. The user logs in to the user identity management service and is automatically logged in to the email account, microblog account and social network account when the user visits the websites that provide these services.
A problem present in user identity management services is that when a user logs out of one relying party service they are not logged out globally from all the other services. For example, the user is logged in to the user identity management service. The user has an email account, a microblog account and a social network account. The user visits a microblog service and is automatically logged in. The user logs out of the microblog service, and expects to be logged out of the email account and the social network account. However, since the microblog service does not communicate this log out event to the email service and the social network service, the user may not be logged out of these services.